The EPA said petitioners hadn’t sufficiently balanced clothianidin’s benefits against its costs. Well, here’s the calculation: clothianidin wasn’t approved until 2003, and the human race got along just fine without it up until then. We’ve needed bees for millennia, and have no substitute. We think the balance is pretty clear.

The public needs to wake up and fight not only this EPA action, but the entire agribusiness machine. It is not only the honeybee that is at stake. Local agricultural activists looking to make our area a prototype for sustainable, small-scale farming are doing their share. A few comments on this issue to the EPA wouldn’t hurt, either.